Something Pretty and Delicate, and Preferably Blue
by ManiacMotherland
Summary: Canon, Isle Esme, B&E honeymoon. Originally written as two separate pieces, now re-released as a drabblefic. Alternating EPOV and BPOV. Much more satisfying than the original novel. M-rated for language, moderate sexual content. NOMINATED: WORDSMITH.
1. Chapter 1

**Detailed Background: **Canon, Isle Esme, B&E honeymoon. This was originally written as two separate pieces, both of them slightly fluffy. Then I jump-cut the two pieces, punched up the smut level, and posted it as one story. Then I took it down because of haters. Now I am going to re-release it as a dribbledrabblefic with short chapters. With very fast updates. Just in time for Breaking Dawn, Part I.

**Author's Note:** This is dedicated to my twifey onesweetbell, who has constantly helped me work through all my insecurities and fears as a fanfic writer, and who is a wonderful sounding board for my cockamamie and bizarre ideas. No one else would be so patient with me. Thank you, thank you. More than you can ever possibly know.

**Disclaimer: **I claim no ownership to any publicly recognizable entities, including Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series and its characters. Entertainment purposes only.

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><p><strong>Something Pretty and Delicate, and Preferably Blue<strong>

*****BPOV*****

Edward swam backwards through the water, holding me around the waist with one arm and using the other arm for balance.

I had rested up against his icy marble bare chest several times since our engagement—in fact, since that night, he seemed increasingly eager to take his shirt off whenever possible.

But now I could feel the bare flesh of his upper thigh and pelvis up against mine and my skin quickly caught fire again.


	2. Chapter 2

*****EPOV*****

In a century of twilight, you have plenty of time to do more than just learn how to play the piano really well.

Learning how to play the piano is easy. Learning how to love is not.

And I don't mean just allowing yourself to be hurt, opening up and proclaiming affection and attraction, risking the possibility of being rejected. I mean the basics of physical love.

A gentleman usually never speaks of these things, but then again, I am also a learned man, a man of science, if you will. I have two graduate degrees in medicine and I have more than just a basic knowledge of human anatomy. I have a good sense of what secret and warm places a woman has between her legs, but as to what is going on in her heart or in her mind, at least in the case of Bella, I might as well be a fool.

A fool in love and on my wedding night, I sighed to myself. Perhaps it was romantic, but it definitely wasn't that dignified.

_Bella, my Bella_. She had said yes. She was there with me, and we were alone, and I was her husband and she was willing.

Bella was always willing, though. And the things I wanted to do to her, they would put Mike Newton's generic mix-and-match fantasies to shame.

But did I know enough about love? Did I know what I needed to know to make her happy?

And perhaps she was willing, but Bella was still innocent. A tightly wound demon was stirring in me that night and I knew it would be difficult to deny him full rein.

Not the blood demon, of course—the body demon, the sex demon. The one that had been pent-up in my once 17-year-old body for nearly a century at this point. And aren't all boys that age supposed to be, in modern parlance, perpetually horny? Imagine that, suspended in time for nearly a 100 years.

Just then, I heard Bella gasp and I sensed a chance to let the demon out to play. I didn't really trust him, but perhaps he would show me the way to proceed.


	3. Chapter 3

*****BPOV*****

"Is there something wrong, Bella?" Edward suddenly asked me as he stopped making long strides backwards and just started treading water.

He smiled at me, but his angel smile had a bit of the devil in it.

"Nothing's wrong," I blushed and shook my head. "I was just remembering the night we finally became engaged."

"You mean the night I tricked you into marrying me, using your hormones?"

"I like my hormones," I responded, grumpily.

"I like them too," he laughed. "They are very easy to predict, unlike your mind."

Edward bent his lips down to mine and the salt water that lingered there mixed with the sweetness of his skin and I thought for a second about how tasty he would be to eat.

But he broke off the kiss a moment later, and I decided I would have to wait just a couple minutes more for that answer.

I started to wonder what the hold-up was. We were both there, with nothing between us but liquid moonlight, every compromise hammered out and met, so what were we waiting for?


	4. Chapter 4

*****EPOV*****

A thought occurred to me then.

I had been swimming around somewhat haphazardly up until then, hoping to find the right way to start making love to Bella. Such a gulf between desire and action, and how to lay down the bridge to cross over?

Or more specifically, how to get laid, the language of someone else's fantasy intruding into my own.

Maybe I could use that language, use those ideas to my advantage, I thought.

But right then, I had an idea of my own to pursue.


	5. Chapter 5

*****BPOV*****

"Swimming is a lot like dancing, don't you think?" he murmured as he took my right hand with his floating free hand and held it out to the side.

His other hand still held me tightly against him, although I could feel it slide down past my waist.

The thumb of that hand stroked the skin of my lower back as Edward started kicking his legs in circles. After a while, it felt like we were doing something that would have been a waltz on dry land.

I didn't even bother to wonder where Edward had learned how to waltz. It was probably standard training for young men of his station back in the early 20th century.

He started singing something softly to himself and I closed my eyes to enjoy the moment.

And to keep from getting dizzy—which would truly ruin the moment.


	6. Chapter 6

*****EPOV*****

I had once danced with Bella at the Forks High School junior prom, and I had told her then that, even if she was dancing on the tops of my feet, she didn't look like a child.

If I had been fully in control of my lust for her blood at that point—like I was now, after earlier this year when I thought Bella was dead and I had gone to Italy to commit "suicide by Volturi" only to find out in the split-second before my planned annihilation that, miraculously, not only was Bella still alive, but that she still loved me, after everything I had done to her—if I had been the same vampire then as I was now, I would have taken Bella away to some dark and lonely spot that evening and had my way with her.

From what I have read, this happens after prom all the time, to the point that it is a cliché.

Perhaps if I danced with her again tonight, perhaps she would remember what I told her back then.

Okay, it was subtle, but girls like subtle and romantic, don't they? I asked myself.

_Yes, subtle. Girls like subtle and romantic. Then again, this is Bella._


	7. Chapter 7

*****BPOV*****

"Where are we going exactly?" I asked as I looked around me for the first time.

We had skirted the edge of the island slightly to the right, so that we were still just as close to the beach house (and its big white bed) as we had been before.

But, in the process, we had evidently gone off the deep end of the water's edge because we were now floating in the ocean where neither of us could touch the ground beneath us.


	8. Chapter 8

*****EPOV*****

I realized that I hadn't done too badly in my maneuvering backwards through the water and we were still actually quite close to the beach house, and the big white bed inside.

Bella seemed to like the bed when she had seen it previously—Bella always seemed to like beds, the bigger the better, as long as they were going to be put to "proper use" at some point. And so I decided I would try my best to get her back to that bed before anything serious started.

My current "put-the-big-white-bed-to-proper-use" plan was to make Bella remember prom last year, and it involved us dancing.

I stretched out my foot down to the ocean bottom and discovered that we had gone off the drop-off edge of the beach.

It would have been easier if I could have touched the ground, but the situation was still not impossible. It would just take a little fancy footwork to pull off.

I murmured romantic fluff to Bella as I pulled her closer to me. Then I let the palm of my right hand slip down past her waist until it rested below the curve of her lower back, my thumb stroking the skin there in a combination of reassurance and persuasion.

I then started kicking my legs in earnest, before we could sink.

It took some concentration, but soon we were twirling around in the water.

Amazingly, I was able to keep both our heads above water and then I started to do a poor imitation of a waltz.

My mother had made sure I had received dancing lessons as a youth, but all in all, my dancing was a little rusty these days and would have been met with contempt if I were to re-enter my human social circle from that bygone era.

I thought about some of the girls I knew from my childhood. Everything was more formal back then. Nobody talked about sex and I had to figure it all out for myself.

As for popular culture and what-not, I had a gramophone that played cylinders when I was a boy, a far cry from current music-capture technology, and a song that was popular in 1916 came to me. I started singing it softly to myself as I waited for Bella to remember what I had said to her that evening at prom, to make the connection.

"He looks here and there. Travels everywhere, just to be amused. He may be old but he's got young ideas and he's a devil in his way."

But Bella just closed her eyes, and I immediately worried that she was going to get sick to her stomach. I thought I'd better just cut to the chase.

"And to think that I once fantasized of holding you next to me while you were wearing something pretty and delicate, and preferably blue. This is by far more enticing."

I breathed the words softly, caressing her with my mind and hoping she would understand their intent.

Bella's eyes flashed fire at me and I decided it was what she wanted to hear.

I didn't know how long the impulse would last, but the devil in me didn't care and I decided to take whatever advantage I had, while I had it.


	9. Chapter 9

*****BPOV*****

Apparently, we weren't waiting any longer.

Our lips met almost before he got the last syllable out.

Edward released his grasp on my arm and waist and both of his hands now slid down past my lower back until they cupped underneath the fleshy part of my bottom.

He continued to tread water as I instinctively pulled my legs up to wrap them around his waist, intertwining my ankles behind him and knotting my fingers into his hair.


	10. Chapter 10

*****EPOV*****

There were so many places on her naked body that I now wanted to touch, and my hands seemed to have a mind of their own. They scurried down Bella's back so they could cup themselves under the lower curves of her derrière.

She responded by lifting her legs up and wrapping them around my waist.

My loins responded instantaneously.

_What is this feeling_, I asked myself, but I knew what it was. It was lust.

The words other people had used to describe the feeling, in everything I had ever read and seen, just didn't seem appropriate to use with Bella. Too clinical or too pornographic.

_Perhaps I should just consider the feeling a sound or a color_, I thought to myself.

It was all semantics anyway, at this point. I knew we had to get out of the ocean and back to the beach-house soon. I could be patient if I needed to be, but Bella was apparently beyond patient at this point.

Which is why I stopped kissing her and started running straight back to the shoreline.


	11. Chapter 11

*****BPOV*****

Edward broke off our kiss again, and I could tell he was out of breath.

I pondered for a half a second whether Carlisle had been right or if vampires could actually drown, because I am sure that keeping both of us afloat and being this close to me couldn't be easy for Edward.

Once we were out of the water, I pulled up some of my weight so that it was more evenly distributed around his shoulders and I placed my forehead up against his neck.

He always claimed that he wouldn't run into a tree while he was carrying me, but I wanted to help him avoid this possibility nevertheless.

And then there was the fact that I had felt him stiffen up against me in the water.

What can I say? I was curious. So I snuck a quick look down past his belly to see what Edward looked like, naked and erect.

_Wow_, I thought to myself, _not too bad. It's the same color as his eyelids_.


	12. Chapter 12

*****EPOV*****

Once we hit dry land, Bella shifted her weight on to my shoulders.

No doubt, she thought she was helping me, but I didn't really need the assistance.

She laid her head down to the side of my neck and then asked me how I was doing. I responded with a nod and then tried to search her face to see how she was feeling, but she refused to look me in the eye.

This worried me, and I decided I would have to get a better answer from her before I proceeded any further tonight.

I would have normally made a bigger deal about the threshold when we crossed it, but the time for the more civilized and symbolic aspects of a wedding was long past at this point.

Instead, I found myself concentrating on the best way to lay Bella down on the bed. It wasn't just her fragile and breakable little body that I worried about now. I wanted her to think I was a prince in a fairy tale placing her there instead of a monster who couldn't seem to control himself.

No control. No control. I ached. I throbbed. I wobbled. It had damn near injured me permanently to run in that condition, I wanted her so badly.


	13. Chapter 13

*****BPOV*****

I winced slightly at the thought of how difficult this run probably was for him.

"Are you okay?" I turned my head to look up at him.

He nodded a quick yes and looked down at me out of the corner of his eye.

He didn't look mad; he looked intent. I didn't make any additional eye contact, so as not to distract him.

We were across the threshold in less time than I would have thought humanly possible, but then again, this was Edward and the word "human" didn't really apply.

He didn't stop running until we hit the edge of the bed, and then he laid me down, once again, in less time and with more grace than a mere mortal man would have been able to.

Before I could stop myself, a recollection of that terrible night last September—after Edward had left me "for my own good", when my dad had carried me back home out of the forest in his arms—it briefly flashed through my mind.

I remembered how there were times during that run the preceding autumn when I thought Charlie would drop me.

Edward, however, seemed to have things well in hand and so I shook my head to get rid the mental image. The pain from that night was a distant memory, and this was surely not the place nor the time to think about my father, at any rate.

In the few seconds it took for me to both remember and then forget that evening, accompanying that small tense movement of my neck muscles, Edward had lain his own body on top of mine. His lower half pressed up against mine, sending jolts of electricity through my legs down to my toes, but he held his upper half up away from my torso by resting on his elbow and the heel of one hand.

And when he saw me shake my head, he misunderstood.


	14. Chapter 14

*****EPOV*****

For some reason, at this point, Bella shook her head.

Panic rushed through me, thick in my mouth, driving away the venom.

These days, my panic for Bella had both a taste and a texture, and I found I couldn't even swallow out of fear.

I had made a mistake. Hopefully, it wasn't a tragic one, a deadly one.

_Oh god, what have I done?_

"Is there something wrong? Do we need to stop? Did I hurt you?"

I started to pull away to see what damage I had done, but Bella wrapped herself around me and pulled me to her.


	15. Chapter 15

*****BPOV*****

His expression of concern cost Edward a few seconds of reaction time and I was able to hook one arm up around his upper torso and the other around his neck and put all my force into pulling him back to me before he got away.

At the same time, I also wrapped one leg around the back of his upper right thigh and started to stroke the back of the other one with the inside of my foot.

Momentarily stunned by this action, Edward stopped retreating away from me.

He then took in a little bit of breath sharply and looked back down at me, waiting for me to speak.


	16. Chapter 16

*****EPOV*****

She held me firm against her, and I couldn't escape.

It wasn't actually the strength of her arms and her legs that rendered me motionless. It was the fact that she was willing to put all of her being into keeping me with her which made me stop.

Being the object of desire is actually just as thrilling as desiring an object, a person. The two taken together makes a heady concoction, and I wasn't sure how much longer I would be able to hold on to my own mind with Bella this close and this… accessible.

Plus, she stroked the back of my leg with the inside of her foot and I immediately thought of the first time she had touched me willingly, in a restaurant in Port Angeles, Washington over a year and a continent away. Just like then, the touch was pure pleasure and I caught my breath at how good it felt, before I realized that, ironically, I didn't need to breathe.

I looked down at Bella and waited for any words to find me to express how I was feeling.

But words eluded me, and so she spoke first.


	17. Chapter 17

*****BPOV*****

"Just a stray memory. It's gone now," I purred.


	18. Chapter 18

*****EPOV*****

_Stray memory? What stray memory? _I stared intently into her eyes for answers. _Was it about Jacob, this memory? Damn that dog! Of all the times to show up when he was not invited or wanted, this had to be the worst._


	19. Chapter 19

*****BPOV*****

Edward looked me directly in the eyes for a long moment, with the same piercing look he had given me a couple times before, when it seemed he was trying to look into my soul—and possibly trying to figure out what I was actually thinking.

I decided he needed a little help and so I angled myself up towards him and started to kiss him.

I felt a flicker of some emotion ripple through the muscles of his chest and then he kissed me back.


	20. Chapter 20

*****EPOV*****

Bella lifted herself up off the bed and kissed me.

I suddenly realized I didn't care what she was thinking about. It didn't matter.

Jacob wasn't there, but I was.

She had chosen _me_. She cared for _me_. Bella Swan. Bella Cullen. My Bella. She cared for me. That was all that mattered.

Her body was so close to mine now. I thought about the way one of her breasts had swung slightly and then rested stem-side-up against her ribcage when she had raised herself up to kiss me.

Such an apple, to pick and taste and eat. Like Eve and her apple, innocent but oh-so tempting.

_Or maybe something more like a melon_, I heard myself say in my mind—why, oh why did my thoughts have to be someone else's at this moment?

I needed to kiss those breasts. Just a small taste perhaps.

My tongue arched in my mouth and I moved my lips down to Bella's neck and waited for a moment to see if she trusted me enough to proceed further.

It was her choice, always her choice, and I still desperately needed to have her show me that she wanted me.

Perhaps she wasn't the most fragile thing in the room—my ego felt like glass, and I contemplated how easy it would be for Bella to smash it with just the tiniest word or glance.


	21. Chapter 21

*****BPOV*****

Edward then lowered himself completely down on to me, holding himself up by just his forearms as he stared directly at me.

He moved his lips from my mouth down my jaw line to my neck, where they stayed for another moment.

He seemed to be waiting for a sign from me before he continued past that point, and I decided once again to help him.


	22. Chapter 22

*****EPOV*****

One of her hands was in my hair, where I could feel every inch of her human skin tingling against the immortal flesh of my scalp.

Her other hand was on my shoulder, which burned slightly at her touch. But the burning was wonderful and I didn't care.

I contemplated for a moment if I needed to ask formal permission to proceed.

Then Bella bent backwards on the bed.

_Fascinating. Exquisite. Potent._

Oh, love. Oh, lust. Oh, desire. Oh, fleshy contentment. The curve of the underside of her breast was warm and fragrant and glorious to consume. I planned to eat her outright and not count the action as anything other than love.

Strangely, her curves and bends did taste a bit like a melon, from what I could remember of human food.

The arch of her back, however; it undid me. I slid my arm underneath it and around it.

Memories flooded my mind. Sometime after my wild years spent as part of a Lost Generation and a vigilante vampire, I had gone to see a Balachine ballet performed in New York City in 1934. The lead ballerina in that production had arched her back on stage in such a way that, for the first time since I had became immortal, I remembered what it was to be human and have the faintest hint of sexual desire flicker through my loins.

I didn't want to make love to the ballerina back then, not really. No doubt the fantasy of her character on the stage was what I was really responding to.

But her graceful and seductive dance did make me realize that I still had a lot to learn about human love and sexuality.

And now Bella was with me, a ballerina on a much smaller stage, and the back-bending relevé that she was doing at that moment reminded me that I was indeed a fool when it came to love.

A fool, that was me. I didn't care. All I wanted was her, and I lost myself again in her skin.

Embarrassingly, it took me a moment to realize Bella had gone limp in my arms.

I probably should have been a little worried, but Bella had both fainted and nearly fainted before, and so the only emotion I felt at that moment was amusement. And so, I reluctantly removed my mouth from her breast and began to shake her gently back into consciousness.


	23. Chapter 23

*****BPOV*****

"Bella! Bella!" Edward whispered in my ear as I climbed back up into awareness.

I could feel the grip of his hand around the upper part of my left arm as he shook me back into consciousness. He laughed tenderly at me.

I realized I was embarrassed and excited at the same time, and didn't know which emotion to respond to.

"Bella, what am I going to do with you?" he continued, pulling himself to rest back on his left elbow and shaking his head.

"Did I faint again?"

"Obviously."

"Is that bad?"

"Well, it does wonders for my ego, and at least you weren't standing up this time," he smiled with his crooked grin that I loved so much. "So, all in all, it is tolerable."

As he said this, his right hand continued to flex and relax itself around the upper part of my left arm.

He still seemed slightly indecisive, but he didn't pull away from me this time, like he had before. _That's good_, I told myself.

I grimaced slightly at what he said, however. I knew he was teasing me, but I wanted our first time to be more than just tolerable, or even humorous. I wanted it to be amazing, perfect and wonderful.

Which meant I was going to have to try even harder to be seductive instead.


	24. Chapter 24

*****EPOV*****

I couldn't help laughing at Bella a little as she opened her eyes with such an embarrassed and confused look that I wanted to kiss her to make it go away.

I tried to downplay the faint. It truly didn't matter to me, if it didn't matter to her. In fact, I kind of liked it when she fainted, because at least then I knew I was doing something right.

And besides, this time, she didn't have to suffer the consequences of my ridiculous need to impress and dazzle her. Her head had just fallen back onto a pillow is all. No blood, no foul.

I was actually a little surprised that humor and sex could exist so well together. They seemed like they should instantly repel each other, but they didn't.

I knew this was possible, humor and sex, because I could still feel my erection. It was somewhere near her hip, almost to the side of her belly.

I reached down and ran a finger up the length of the hardened flesh. Yes, clearly, I still wanted to fuck Bella. Now that she had regained consciousness.

_Fuck_. I smiled at the word, spun it around in my mind like a bottlecap. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck_. Yes, I liked thinking that word, but I was glad that I was the only mind-reader in the room at that point.

A gentleman, after all, may think such things to himself, but he should never actually say them out loud.

I wasn't going to let go of her arm, however. I wasn't done with kissing and tasting and fondling her breasts, for one thing, and she wasn't getting away that easily.

What happened next was nothing I could have foreseen. Even if I had been Alice, I doubt I could have foreseen it. And yet, how many times before had I told myself how unpredictable Bella was? How many times had I reminded myself that even if I could have read her mind, that there was no guarantee that I would have understood it?

Perhaps that was the key to her attraction to Jacob—I could not even think the name without my anger resurfacing. Perhaps, like Carlisle had once theorized, they were both so ruled by their native personalities that their thoughts were often actually more involuntary reactions than decisions, and that those thoughts changed everything about them in that moment, to the point where the future could not hold them anymore.

Whatever the reason was for what Bella did next, I was glad she did it. I just wasn't sure initially if she was prepared for the response that I was holding back, for the devil that wanted to be set free, if she would only say the right words to set him free.


	25. Chapter 25

*****BPOV*****

I pulled myself up on to my elbows and I shook my hair out behind my head, tilting my chin and parting my lips slightly.

_This is how to be sexy, right?_ I asked myself in my mind. _I hope that I'm doing it right._

I then opened up my mouth and said something suggestive and vaguely dirty that I had once heard an actress say in a movie.


	26. Chapter 26

*****EPOV*****

_What did she just say?_ I quirked the mental question.

I am sure I gave some of my arousal away, but I stayed as still as I could, trying to remain calm for Bella, so she wouldn't faint again.

Since that would only produce more guilt and embarrassment and it would be that much longer before I could start making love to her again.

I am still a guy, after all. A guy on his wedding night with a chub. Thank you, the ever-so-crude Mike Newton.

But what was Bella saying to me? Were we quoting movies now? And did she really want to continue down this path? If so—_please let it be so—_then I had a lot of movies that I wanted to quote to her as well.

Although they were not, strictly speaking, the same kind of movie as the one Bella currently was quoting. Definitely not… mainstream, shall we say.


	27. Chapter 27

*****BPOV*****

"Are you trying to dazzle me, Mrs. Cullen?" he said with a throaty chuckle.

Clearly, drastic measures were called for. I pulled myself up even further onto my elbows and let the nipples of my breasts lightly brush up against his bare chest.

I placed my mouth close to one ear, silently swallowed my fear and embarrassment, and then tried another line from the same movie. Hoping, this time, I could provoke a better response in my husband.


	28. Chapter 28

*****EPOV*****

I had quoted the first movie that had come to my mind, sort of. I doubt that Bella caught the reference to a film that is what... how many years... we are in the 21st century, right? Things get confused after awhile.

What can I say? I have seen thousands of movies during the years I have been around, and bonking Anne Bancroft had been a wee bit of a May-December fantasy for me, there for awhile.

Apparently, however, this was not exactly what Bella wanted to hear, because she set her jaw and started to try again. She raised herself up to me fully this time and whispered something else in my ear.

_Such beautiful smut_, I smiled to myself.

But the words themselves didn't matter as much as the fact that she was clearly pressing her breasts up against my chest on purpose. That made all the difference. She wanted me to touch her, and I decided in an instant what I wanted—to make Bella come.


	29. Chapter 29

*****BPOV*****

Edward's hand moved quickly up to my shoulder, pushing me back down into the bed.

The love-shove a little too rough, I almost winced. Still, I found myself with a secret smile on my lips.

His hand then moved down the side of my torso to my ribs where it supported the weight of his body as he shifted it up and slightly over so he was able to look down at me directly.

I could swear I saw the color of his eyes flicker from light gold to coal black and then back again in the half-second before he spoke to me.

I don't exactly remember the words he said but they made my knees shake and the tiny spot in the center of my palm burn.

Afterwards, I realized that his free hand had left the side of my torso and its ribs which now pulsated lightly as the weight of his body was removed.

That same hand was now traveling slowly down the side of my hip to the top of my thigh. I could feel him uncurl the fingers of his hand and begin stroking the skin around my belly button in small circles with his thumb.

I realized how much I loved that thumb and suddenly wanted to suck on it, maybe bite it just a little bit.

But before I could get a hold of it, Edward pulled away slightly from our kiss and shifted his body sidewise and up until I found my head cradled in the crook of his left elbow.


	30. Chapter 30

*****EPOV*****

Come. Come. Come. It was such a dirty word, for such a beautiful thing. But that is what I wanted the most now, to make Bella come.

If I had been assured that I was in possession of a soul, I would have traded it gladly for her pleasure.

As my mind and my hand wandered, I contemplated the first time I had heard that dirty little word.

Was it during the 1950s? I had spent some time in San Francisco during that timeframe, so perhaps it was in the coffee houses there that I'd acquired the use of the word and its current meaning.

I ran through some beat poetry in my head and decided that none of it applied to Bella and let it dissolve out of the corners of my mind.

So yes, poetry in general was good. Just not beat poetry, I decided.

Still, I owed Bella the courtesy of knowing my intent. I wanted to act on the words that were swirling in my mind, but I wanted to protect her from them as well.

Such a dilemma but with a simple solution. I would just ask her if we could proceed. And if she didn't say "no" in just so many words, then I had decided that I would take that as a "yes".

And I would keep it light, if I could. If the demon in my loins would permit me to be the gentleman who I wanted to be. For her. For us both.

I shifted myself fully on top of her, looked down.

"So, trying to dazzle me, Bella? I am ready, if you are willing. I have a hard-on the size of the Volterra clock tower and I want to make you come. Just say the word."

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Ugh! Gah! Hellfire! That's the best you can come up with, Edward, you miserable sot?_

The feeling of embarrassment awashing over me. The pain at being so exposed. Yes, indeed, I think I may have lost my hold on light.


	31. Chapter 31

*****BPOV*****

My right arm was pinned against my side now and I ran the fingertips of my left hand across his collarbone and tilted my head back with a question in my eyes.

We hadn't said anything for a couple minutes at this point, but I found that words escaped me now and all I could do was stare at him.

A brief memory of the first day I'd met him flickered through my mind. There was something in his eyes now that made me think he also noticed the parallel, but I couldn't be sure.

Whatever was on his mind, he didn't say anything out loud. Instead, he returned his lips to mine—his were cold and smooth and sweet—and I listened to his ragged breath as I wondered what he was thinking.

No doubt, I was an innocent, but from what I understood of the essentials of sex, this current position wasn't going to work out too well.

I felt Edward, the best part of Edward, pressed hard up against my right thigh and hip, and I wondered again what he was waiting for.


	32. Chapter 32

*****EPOV*****

I paused. I waited. I listened to the pulse in her neck.

Bella didn't say no. In fact, she didn't say anything. She looked like she couldn't breathe, but that was good enough for me and the devil on my shoulder.

I started kissing her again to distract her from what I was doing with my right hand—truth be told, I was practicing, seeing how she responded to the pressure of my thumb. While it was still only stroking her belly.

She didn't seem to mind. Actually, she seemed to like it. That was a good sign. I moved my body to the side and gathered her up in the corner of my elbow.


	33. Chapter 33

*****BPOV*****

_I want to touch you. _I stretched out the fingers of my hand, the one pinned closely to my side. _I want to see you, Edward._ _Why are you hiding from me?_

But Edward couldn't hear my thoughts and did not respond to this action, nor did he move to free my arm.

He clearly had something else on his mind, and I clearly did not know what it was.


	34. Chapter 34

*****EPOV*****

She looked up at me questioningly, and I felt almost like a dirty old man for a fleeting second.

I mean, I was nearly 90 years older than her. I had seen the rise and fall of communism while I was waiting for her to arrive.

All the more reason to keep her where she was. All the more reason to touch her and please her and hear her call my name.

Would she call my name? I ached to think it. She wriggled the fingers of her right hand a couple times, maybe wanting to be released, I thought briefly, but I still refused to let her go.

Despite this small movement, she generally seemed to want to stay with me. But perhaps she needed one last chance to say no.

There was one last permission to ask and receive, after all.


	35. Chapter 35

*****BPOV*****

I should have realized that, given his obsession for giving me things, that Edward would think first about my own happiness before he considered his own.

_His tongue tastes like licorice_, I thought to myself as he slid his hand to below my hipbone then curled it into a loose fist, gently nudging the inside of my thigh with his knuckles.

Part of my virgin brain still told me to resist, but the other part said _Oh, never mind!_ and I let him push my legs apart with the backside of his hand.

Edward quickly moved his lips away from mine and brushed them along the side of my cheek until they were right up against my ear, his face buried in my hair.

I had long since stopped trying to hide how broken and quick my breathing was now, but I still felt a thrill of electricity shoot through me as he started to speak.


	36. Chapter 36

*****EPOV*****

I was gentle and she responded.

Bella had said yes to me once again. Bella had said yes to me once again. The dirty little words in my head found me and I gave in.


	37. Chapter 37

*****BPOV*****

"I want to make you come, Bella. Stroke your small little pink bump with my thumb and feel the warm places inside of you melt under my touch. Rub your wet and swollen lips. Feel you shudder. Then thrust the rigid part of me that aches to be inside you, into you. And fuck you. Hard. Until you squirm and moan and come again."

_Wow. Yes. Please_.

"Where… where… how did you?" I gulped as he began to move the flat top of his thumb in circles around the most sensitive part of my body.

I rolled my eyes back into my head and wondered if Edward was actually going to tell me where he had learned to look like an angel but speak like a demon.


	38. Chapter 38

*****EPOV*****

"In a century of twilight, you have plenty of time to do more than just learn how to play the piano really well", I continued.

Bella still seemed to be in a daze. I laughed in spite of myself.

"I have had a lot of time to consider this, love. And no one to practice on. No one I wanted to practice on, anyway. And you know what they say about idle hands."

_Holy hell, but that was bad_. I thought to myself. I had so wanted to say those words—waited decades to say those words. But now they seemed way too vulgar and contrived.

Where did they even come from? Maybe something that I had heard once in a film, the kind of films you used to be able to see in respectable movie theaters in the 1970s.

And the rest of it, so hackneyed. I was quite honestly chagrined at my behavior. So uncouth!

Still, the devil pushed me on. With his help, my hands were no longer idle at that point. My thumb was stroking the pink nub between Bella's legs and the other hand was grasping at the flesh at the back of her neck as I kissed her. I concentrated on wrapping her tongue around mine while keeping it away from my teeth. Tricky, yes, but not impossible.

So much to do, so much to focus on, and I still had an erection that could poke someone's eye out.

Eye… face… mouth… oh no, Bella's mouth. That was the wrong thing to think about, I realized. If indeed I still wanted to focus.

_Poetry_, I thought to myself. _Just think of poetry_. _Hell, at this point, Edward, you better start thinking about baseball_.

Still, I kept twirling my thumb. It was almost like I couldn't stop myself.

When I pulled away to watch her pleasure, Bella looked vaguely like she might be feeling seasick, but I didn't stop. I stretched out the knuckles of my hand and slid one finger into what I once read described as the female alcove, the voluptuous darkness, the particularly soft skin between the legs, the deepest recesses of her femininity, the little wound. A woman's words for a woman's body.

But Bella wasn't a woman, not yet. I slid one more finger inside of her and then rounded them both gently back towards my thumb and pressed firmly. Bella gasped and my head swam from the sound of her desire.

_What is this feeling_, I wondered—the room was spinning. _Is this what it is like to faint?_


	39. Chapter 39

*****BPOV*****

With his left hand, he gripped the roots of my hair and started to kiss me again, angling my head slightly towards my shoulder.

All my existence seemed to swirl around the small circular motion of this thumb.

I gave into the feeling and let it pull me around, like Edward on the dance floor, like Edward in the warm ocean.

Before I was truly aware of what was happening to me, I was arching my back on the big white bed with such force that I had to grab the mattress with my toes to keep from sliding off the end of it.

Then I realized, after I felt the pleasure ripple through my flesh, that I had been yelling out Edward's name. Saying dirty, pornographic words that I am sure he thought I was incapable of speaking.

If this bothered him, he didn't show it. Edward showed nothing now but a series of facial contortions caused by hunger and fear and concern.

If I did not know him better, I would think he was angry. But I knew otherwise. He was just holding back.

And yet, somehow, all this pain and suffering and control, at this most heated moment, they made my new husband even more unbearably beautiful than before—it took my breath away. He now shone as bright as an angel to me.


	40. Chapter 40

*****EPOV*****

I kissed Bella again, this time with a too much force. I thought I might be bruising her neck, and so I pulled back to check and instead got ambushed by my psyche.

_IF YOU CANNOT CONTROL YOURSELF BETTER THAN THAT, THEN YOU MUST STOP! NOW! YOU ARE A GENTLEMAN FIRST, EDWARD CULLEN, NEVER FORGOT THAT!_

"Ah, fuck off," I muttered under my breath to myself.

I could do this; I knew I could. My tongue penerated her lips and my hands tugged at her hair. All the while, I drove the roar of negativity out of my mind as best I could.

I thought of music. I thought of color. I thought of anything to keep myself in control of my emotions and of my physical actions.

_Breathe. Breathe. Remember to breathe. _

My fingers spun and spun, finding a speed and a pressure that Bella responded to. And when she came, Bella bent backwards in an arch that evoked the bow of the various hunter-virgin goddesses of myth.

_Lay thy bow of pearl apart, and thy crystal-shining quiver. Give unto the flying hart, space to breathe, how short so-ever: Thou that mak'st the day of night. Goddess excellently bright._

Yes, poetry was acceptable, I'd already decided that. Ben Jonson, but not beat. Poetry was actually the only thing keeping my mind together right then, to be honest.

Then Bella shouted my name. And some other dirty words that I felt burn into my flesh.

That was all it took. I was done being patient. She was mine and I was going to take her.

I growled at the dirty words, the negative words in my head and told them to go away. I acted on instinct and stopped thinking.

I was just a man, and I wanted her, and I pushed my way inside of her and began to thrust in earnest.

My movements had to be gentle, but I was feeling anything but gentle at the moment. And so I grabbed on to the nearest solid item near my head and held on for dear life—for Bella's dear life, more precisely.


	41. Chapter 41

*****BPOV*****

A strangled cry in the back of his throat that was somehow both lovely and a bit terrifying to hear.

Then Edward shoved the inner part of my thighs apart with the palms of his hands as he moved the full weight of his granite form on top of me.

I relaxed my body back on to the bed once again, grabbed both of my knees and then pulled them up and out towards his elbows in an effort to help him gain access.

He didn't need much help. He entered me with one strong shove of his hips, moving his lips to brush against the top of my forehead along my hairline, and saying my name over and over again with each new thrust.

He said the word, _Bella_, so quietly and with such reverence that it nearly broke my heart in two.


	42. Chapter 42

*****EPOV*****

I kissed her forehead and said her name, several times, so she would know that I was more than just the monster who had taken away her virginity with one selfish and crazed pelvic heave.

I was still Edward, _her Edward_, after all. But I was not entirely myself right then.

In that state of near madness, I found myself remembering what Bella had said just moments before when she had her brilliant little orgasm. I realized with a sudden burst of pleasure that she had reciprocated my vulgarity.

The idea that she didn't find my desire repulsive unnerved me, and I nearly forgot everything—her name, my name, where we were—all that remained was the absolute fact that I loved her.

I started to voice those desires again, but I was still not at ease with letting Bella hear the words I spoke.

Instead, I buried my face in a nearby pillow and muttered those words to myself.


	43. Chapter 43

*****BPOV*****

I had been nervous before, thinking there might have been some pain, but all I could feel was some kind of wonderful jostling fullness.

_So this was sex_, I thought to myself. _Like wrapping yourself around the pole of a bumper car. And padding that sends shockwaves on through your legs and right up to your spine. You feel like you are driving really fast and crashing into things when you fuck. This is amazing, perfect and wonderful. How does anyone have time or energy for anything else?_

I started to cry but quickly wiped away the tears so Edward wouldn't misunderstand them and stop making love to me.

He deserved this happiness, and I wanted him to take it. It was my body he wanted right now, I could tell, and so I yielded it to him completely and thought about how lucky I was to have something that he wanted from me that I could give him.

My knees were still slightly bent and my feet were dangling alongside the upper part of my back thigh. I gathered my feet together behind the small of Edward's back and squeezed them as hard as I could together.

I then wrapped my arms as tightly as I could around his shoulders and tried to match the rhythm of his thrusts until I became part of them, inseparable from them.


	44. Chapter 44

*****EPOV*****

Perhaps she heard my pornographic narration, and perhaps she didn't.

Truly, it didn't matter to me. It was enough to speak the words and be inside of Bella. I couldn't be inside her mind, but I could be inside her body.

And despite the dirty words that I spoke to my myself, I felt like the caretaker of a holy temple, like Bella was Diana, the hunter goddess and protector of virgins.

Poetical, once again, I know, but it was either that or the steady stream of profanity that was issuing out from my mouth. I wanted Bella both ways, and she was willing to have me both ways, and I felt honored just to touch her, let alone make love to her.

But my mind couldn't hold on to that thought for long. It was barely holding on to conscious thought at all by this point, to be honest.

Bella must have seen a few blue movies herself, because she squeezed her legs around by waist, tightly. I rattled out an ectastic moan and I am absolutelly sure that she heard me.

_C'est la vie, c'est la guerre._


	45. Chapter 45

*****BPOV*****

It took me a moment to realize that Edward was no longer brushing my forehead with his lips or whispering my name.

Instead, moving his head back and forth over the extra layer of softness beneath us, he was muttering to himself so loudly that I thought I should be able to hear what he was saying. Except his words were muffled somehow.


	46. Chapter 46

*****EPOV*****

_I am so far gone. W__hat is happening to me__?_

I stopped mumbling sexual expletives in to the bedding and started mentally listing all the baseball players I knew of who were named Phil… Phil Regan, Phil Hughes, Phil Dumatrait, Phil Wunderlich.

I gritted my teeth and thrashed my jaw as I said their names.

Then I noticed something white and fluffy floating around my head.

Oh, for the love of all that is holy, I would have to buy Esme some new pillows.

_I couldn't help myself, I couldn't help myself, I couldn't help myself._


	47. Chapter 47

*****BPOV*****

Every movement Edward made now nearly hurt. I knew this state couldn't last much longer. We would spontaneously combust if it did.

A catch in his breath, I heard it and understood it. I pulled Edward's face back up to mine as he shuddered inside me. I shuddered too. My legs turned to jelly. I lost all feeling in my toes.

"I love you, Edward!" I choked hoarsely, meaning every word, every syllable I said, from now until the end of time, until the end of eternity, until the end of us.

"I love you too, Bella. That's why we're here" he whispered.

He bent his head down and laid his forehead against mine. His lips gently touched mine, and I knew that he meant it.

Then, before I could even say "I told you so", the darkness started closing in around me and I felt the inescapable pull of sleep.


	48. Chapter 48

*****EPOV*****

When she touched my face again, I couldn't remember where I was.

Was I in heaven? Was I in hell? I had already been around the world, some places twice. So where I was now that this angel was with me?

The angel said my name and she told me that she loved me and my body spasmed in pleasure to hear it. I told her I loved her too, instinctually.

It was done, we were through, but why was she still there? If it had all just been a dream, she would have been gone by now.

Then I heard the sing-song laugh of a child and I did not know whose laugh it was.

The angel's name was Bella, I remembered that now, that was the name I had just called her, but the angel was not laughing. Looking at her now, I could see that she was happy, so content in fact that her consciousness was slipping away from her, but she wasn't laughing.

So who was this child who now ran laughing through my mind? Who was she and why should I care, when I still had the angel with me, the angel that I called Bella.


	49. Chapter 49

*****BPOV*****

I felt Edward shift me gently to the side and I glimpsed for a moment the frothy canopy above us, wondering why I hadn't noticed it much before. Then again, my attention had clearly been otherwise involved before, so I forgave myself for paying so little attention to my surroundings. Edward murmured something sweet and tender to me and I tried to say "I told you so" again but I doubt the words came out as anything but a lot of mush.

As I melted away into sleep, I dreamt about requited love and Edward. I dreamt about our families and friends—I kept the Jacob-drawer carefully shut and locked; not even a rattle from that part of my mind disturbed my descent into the opaque and fluid state that rose up to meet me now. I dreamt about how I didn't want this honeymoon to ever end. I dreamt about the fact that when I woke up tomorrow, or later today, we could do it all over again and it would be just as good as the first time, every time, from now until the end of time, until the end of eternity, until the end of us.

I was wrapped in bliss and I doubted anything could ever pierce the bubble of happiness I now found myself in.

I drifted asleep with a smile on my lips, dreaming of the next time I could show him just how lucky both of us truly were.

**A/N: Thanks for reading. "I have died everyday, waiting for you." —Christina Perri, "A Thousand Years", Breaking Dawn Part I Soundtrack**


	50. Chapter 50

*****EPOV*****

The jittery high of my arousal was subsiding and taking all my courage with it. Now the guilt and panic returned, thick and palatable.

Would I regret what I had just done, now that the passion was gone? What would my wretched need to possess her cost Bella in the end?

Remorse already invading my mind forcefully, I knew I couldn't keep it out forever.

I was reaching across her delicately breathing form to wrap Bella in the bedspread we had just made love on when I noticed the tiniest flecks of blood on the white fabric.

I had expected this—she had been a virgin, after all. But the sight of her hymenal blood was so devastating to me now, I took my forehead in my hands to hide myself from myself.

I had her blood on her hands. Bella's blood, on my hands. She had given herself to me willingly, but did that mean I had to take her when I knew that it would hurt her?

I threw back my head and let out a guttural sound of despair. I had made this sound only one time before, when I thought that Bella was dead. She was still here with me now, asleep and pleasantly dreaming. But how much longer did I really have with her if I kept making mistakes? When would my passion finally outmatch my reason to the point that I would hurt her so much that I couldn't make it right, couldn't take it back?

I could be stronger than my demon desires, I promised myself, and I would start being stronger the next time I felt the devil tap me on the shoulder, for Bella's sake.

I laid down beside her, as still as the statue that I used to think I was before I met her, and I thought of what I would have to say in the morning to convince her to be patient again.

I would wait for her to wake up, and I would tell her the reasons why.

She wouldn't like it, of course. Still, I would lie to her and dazzle her and bribe her and threaten her if I had to, but I loved her and so I wouldn't touch her again, not until we got home. Not until she was immortal like me. Not until I was absolutely sure that I wouldn't at some point finish with my selfish, wicked pleasure and find the delicate framework of her bones shattered and smashed, her blood running freely.

Not until I changed her. Not until then.

**A/N: Thanks for reading. "I surrender what I've been, for who you are. For nothing makes me stronger than your fragile heart" —Sleeping At Last, "Turning Page", Breaking Dawn Part I Soundtrack**


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